The Dream Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBBBCDEFGHBIJKLAMNOP QRBBSJ A TLBUVWXYLZBA2B2C2JD2 TE2BBAF2BNG2JBG2BH2E PMBBB2I2UJ2K2BJ2ABJB BL2 A M2N2BBPPBBN2PN2O2N2B N2BPBP2Q2R2VEJ2S2PBQ 2NN2 H2 M2T2U2BBBN2V2I2NI2BI 2BI2PW2BAD2P B M2PU2U2BBH2H2AI2BN2X 2I2BBBB A M2BBBBJ2Y2Z2PI2I2J2Y I2BPQ2I2BN2A3BH A M2BBI2Z2GI2I2BI2I2I2 BTI2I2B3 A N2I | A |
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Our life is twofold Sleep hath its own world | B |
A boundary between the things misnamed | B |
Death and existence Sleep hath its own world | B |
And a wide realm of wild reality | B |
And dreams in their development have breath | C |
And tears and tortures and the touch of joy | D |
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts | E |
They take a weight from off waking toils | F |
They do divide our being they become | G |
A portion of ourselves as of our time | H |
And look like heralds of eternity | B |
They pass like spirits of the past they speak | I |
Like sibyls of the future they have power | J |
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain | K |
They make us what we were not what they will | L |
And shake us with the vision that's gone by | A |
The dread of vanished shadows Are they so | M |
Is not the past all shadow What are they | N |
Creations of the mind The mind can make | O |
Substances and people planets of its own | P |
With beings brighter than have been and give | Q |
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh | R |
I would recall a vision which I dreamed | B |
Perchance in sleep for in itself a thought | B |
A slumbering thought is capable of years | S |
And curdles a long life into one hour | J |
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II | A |
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I saw two beings in the hues of youth | T |
Standing upon a hill a gentle hill | L |
Green and of mild declivity the last | B |
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such | U |
Save that there was no sea to lave its base | V |
But a most living landscape and the wave | W |
Of woods and corn fields and the abodes of men | X |
Scattered at intervals and wreathing smoke | Y |
Arising from such rustic roofs the hill | L |
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem | Z |
Of trees in circular array so fixed | B |
Not by the sport of nature but of man | A2 |
These two a maiden and a youth were there | B2 |
Gazing the one on all that was beneath | C2 |
Fair as herself but the boy gazed on her | J |
And both were young and one was beautiful | D2 |
And both were young yet not alike in youth | T |
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge | E2 |
The maid was on the eve of womanhood | B |
The boy had fewer summers but his heart | B |
Had far outgrown his years and to his eye | A |
There was but one beloved face on earth | F2 |
And that was shining on him he had looked | B |
Upon it till it could not pass away | N |
He had no breath no being but in hers | G2 |
She was his voice he did not speak to her | J |
But trembled on her words she was his sight | B |
For his eye followed hers and saw with hers | G2 |
Which coloured all his objects he had ceased | B |
To live within himself she was his life | H2 |
The ocean to the river of his thoughts | E |
Which terminated all upon a tone | P |
A touch of hers his blood would ebb and flow | M |
And his cheek change tempestuously his heart | B |
Unknowing of its cause of agony | B |
But she in these fond feelings had no share | B2 |
Her sighs were not for him to her he was | I2 |
Even as a brother but no more 'twas much | U |
For brotherless she was save in the name | J2 |
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him | K2 |
Herself the solitary scion left | B |
Of a time honoured race It was a name | J2 |
Which pleased him and yet pleased him not and why | A |
Time taught him a deep answer when she loved | B |
Another even now she loved another | J |
And on the summit of that hill she stood | B |
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed | B |
Kept pace with her expectancy and flew | L2 |
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III | A |
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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream | M2 |
There was an ancient mansion and before | N2 |
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned | B |
Within an antique Oratory stood | B |
The Boy of whom I spake he was alone | P |
And pale and pacing to and fro anon | P |
He sate him down and seized a pen and traced | B |
Words which I could not guess of then he leaned | B |
His bowed head on his hands and shook as 'twere | N2 |
With a convulsion then rose again | P |
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear | N2 |
What he had written but he shed no tears | O2 |
And he did calm himself and fix his brow | N2 |
Into a kind of quiet as he paused | B |
The Lady of his love re entered there | N2 |
She was serene and smiling then and yet | B |
She knew she was by him beloved she knew | P |
For quickly comes such knowledge that his heart | B |
Was darkened with her shadow and she saw | P2 |
That he was wretched but she saw not all | Q2 |
He rose and with a cold and gentle grasp | R2 |
He took her hand a moment o'er his face | V |
A tablet of unutterable thoughts | E |
Was traced and then it faded as it came | J2 |
He dropped the hand he held and with slow steps | S2 |
Retired but not as bidding her adieu | P |
For they did part with mutual smiles he passed | B |
From out the massy gate of that old Hall | Q2 |
And mounting on his steed he went his way | N |
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more | N2 |
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IV | H2 |
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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream | M2 |
The Boy was sprung to manhood in the wilds | T2 |
Of fiery climes he made himself a home | U2 |
And his Soul drank their sunbeams he was girt | B |
With strange and dusky aspects he was not | B |
Himself like what he had been on the sea | B |
And on the shore he was a wanderer | N2 |
There was a mass of many images | V2 |
Crowded like waves upon me but he was | I2 |
A part of all and in the last he lay | N |
Reposing from the noontide sultriness | I2 |
Couched among fallen columns in the shade | B |
Of ruined walls that had survived the names | I2 |
Of those who reared them by his sleeping side | B |
Stood camels grazing and some goodly steeds | I2 |
Were fastened near a fountain and a man | P |
Glad in a flowing garb did watch the while | W2 |
While many of his tribe slumbered around | B |
And they were canopied by the blue sky | A |
So cloudless clear and purely beautiful | D2 |
That God alone was to be seen in heaven | P |
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V | B |
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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream | M2 |
The Lady of his love was wed with One | P |
Who did not love her better in her home | U2 |
A thousand leagues from his her native home | U2 |
She dwelt begirt with growing Infancy | B |
Daughters and sons of Beauty but behold | B |
Upon her face there was a tint of grief | H2 |
The settled shadow of an inward strife | H2 |
And an unquiet drooping of the eye | A |
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears | I2 |
What could her grief be she had all she loved | B |
And he who had so loved her was not there | N2 |
To trouble with bad hopes or evil wish | X2 |
Or ill repressed affliction her pure thoughts | I2 |
What could her grief be she had loved him not | B |
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved | B |
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed | B |
Upon her mind a spectre of the past | B |
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VI | A |
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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream | M2 |
The Wanderer was returned I saw him stand | B |
Before an altar with a gentle bride | B |
Her face was fair but was not that which made | B |
The Starlight of his Boyhood as he stood | B |
Even at the altar o'er his brow there came | J2 |
The selfsame aspect and the quivering shock | Y2 |
That in the antique Oratory shook | Z2 |
His bosom in its solitude and then | P |
As in that hour a moment o'er his face | I2 |
The tablet of unutterable thoughts | I2 |
Was traced and then it faded as it came | J2 |
And he stood calm and quiet and he spoke | Y |
The fitting vows but heard not his own words | I2 |
And all things reeled around him he could see | B |
Not that which was nor that which should have been | P |
But the old mansion and the accustomed hall | Q2 |
And the remembered chambers and the place | I2 |
The day the hour the sunshine and the shade | B |
All things pertaining to that place and hour | N2 |
And her who was his destiny came back | A3 |
And thrust themselves between him and the light | B |
What business had they there at such a time | H |
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VII | A |
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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream | M2 |
The Lady of his love Oh she was changed | B |
As by the sickness of the soul her mind | B |
Had wandered from its dwelling and her eyes | I2 |
They had not their own lustre but the look | Z2 |
Which is not of the earth she was become | G |
The queen of a fantastic realm her thoughts | I2 |
Were combinations of disjointed things | I2 |
And forms impalpable and unperceived | B |
Of others' sight familiar were to hers | I2 |
And this the world calls frenzy but the wise | I2 |
Have a far deeper madness and the glance | I2 |
Of melancholy is a fearful gift | B |
What is it but the telescope of truth | T |
Which strips the distance of its fantasies | I2 |
And brings life near in utter nakedness | I2 |
Making the cold reality too real | B3 |
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VIII | A |
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A change came o'er | N2 |
George Gordon Byron
(1)
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